this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2024
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This is a necessary reminder that Ecosia is a scam:
If you're using Ecosia with an adblocker or knowingly skip over sponsored results then you are NOT in any way contributing to the tree-planting
Ofcourse they don't plant trees themselves, it's a search engine with a small team. They donate their entire profit which averages upwards of a million euros every month, to local tree planting initiatives across the world and that isn't a 'little' number at all.
I agree, they were 'a bit' misleading with that in the past. Although they did state in their tree counter earlier and somewhere in their website/blog that it was roughly 45 searches (in Germany, depends on region) which raised enough money to plant a tree. They've since removed most, if not all of the misinformation.
Since when does using Bing results make a search engine a 'scam'? DuckDuckGo also uses Bing results, would you call that a scam as well? Ecosia uses Bing search results because it's close to impossible to make an independent search engine which gives satisfactory results without the resources of a tech giant.
Pick a lane. It can’t be both. Either they donate to local initiatives or global ones. Pick one.
Also Ecosia is a not for profit company. They don’t hide that fact.
I think local initiatives around the world would mean initiatives around the world which are specifically local, rather than large, multinational planting organisations.
But they are pretty clear about that. Also, how is that worse than Google or bing? It's not a dream sure, but its a lot better than your money going to Google
they are not "clear about that". I can see they removed it now but for the longest time the main page had a banner saying "every search plants a tree" and also an actual counter which went up by one every time you made a search -- which was misleading, because it wasn't every "search", because you would have to click on an ad, and it wasn't "every", because it took several clicks on an ad to actually contribute an equivalent of a tree
How many trees did you plant?
Does not sound like a scam.
The build a website, with ads, and donate the revenue.
It is a scam if you make claims that "every search plants a tree"
But this they don't say on their website. You have to search a lot of more for a tree.
They removed it recently, probably someone called them out on it. And again, searches have nothing to do with funding the tree-planting, it's clicking on ads
https://ecosia.helpscoutdocs.com/article/351-sync-your-counter-across-devices
How many trees have you planted?
If fruit trees count then around 50, why?
Why would fruit trees ever be excluded from one's aggregate tree count?
Coz they small
Can I ask what search engine you would recommend that is not some kind of misleading or a scam
Qwant?
What have you done?
I think your second and third point are well known or at least easily conceivable, but where did you get your first point from? Plain curiosity
their own blog
How many have you planted?
I'd rather 'little contribution' than none at all. I'd rather 'every couple of clicks' than none at all. It's not perfect, but it's better than the major alternatives.
clicks on ads
You’ve helped humanity so much more, so let’s shit on them.
What’s your contribution?